Ten-X Forecasts Declines in October Home Sales

October’s home sales will show a slight decline, according to the latest Residential Real Estate Nowcast from Ten-X, which is predicting seasonally adjusted annual rates of 5.21 and 5.56 million, with a targeted number of 5.38 million—a 1.6 percent drop from September but up 0.5 percent uptick from a year ago.

Ten-X is also predicting that median existing-home sales for this month will range between $221,779 and $245,125, with a target price of $233,452, a 0.3 percent dip from September but a 5.9 percent rise on a year-over-year measurement.

"As we move into the fourth quarter, it looks like both existing home and new home sales are going to finish the year pretty much where they were predicted to be at the beginning of the year—around 5.4 million existing home sales and between 550 and 600 thousand new home sales," said Ten-X Executive Vice President Rick Sharga. "Stubbornly low inventory and tight credit have combined to prevent a more robust housing market recovery in 2016, and it seems likely that 2017 will be more of the same."

"Both the September NAR numbers and October nowcast show that sales are returning to the higher end of our expected range for the year," added Ten-X Chief Economist Peter Muoio. "Tight inventory levels continue to be a restraining factor, but the recent uptick of available homes continues to follow our expectation that higher prices will induce more listings."